


It'll All Come out in the Wash

by dangerouslytremendousperson



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Drowning, Episode Related, F/F, Implied/Referenced Suicide, character death...sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26095051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dangerouslytremendousperson/pseuds/dangerouslytremendousperson
Summary: Set Post Episode 4X05 Holy War Part 1-One ShotBasically my take on what might happen after Waverly walks in at the end of the episode.  Nicole survives but she and Waverly finally have the talk they needed to have since the beginning of the season.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 4
Kudos: 217





	It'll All Come out in the Wash

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like Nicole and Waverly need to finally get some things out and I think what happened in the episode and the next will probably facilitate this. So this is just my take on the conversation I think they really need to have. Also, I just needed to write this to feel like Nicole is okay while waiting for next week. Hope everyone enjoys it.

“I know this looks bad, but I need you to trust us,” Jeremy said.

It looked like her girlfriend was drowning in a tub of water while the closest thing to a father figure either one of them had was reading a book while wearing a bear on his head…bad was the understatement of a lifetime as far as Waverly was concerned.

“What did you do?” Waverly said as she tried to push past Jeremy, but he grabbed her shoulders to stop her. She wasn’t sure who exactly she was asking, Jeremy or Nicole.

“She asked us to. She said it was the only way,” Jeremy continued. “You have to let us finish, or it will be for nothing, and she’s already…” Jeremy let his voice trail off and motioned to Nicole in the tub…No, it was Nicole’s body in the tub. Nicole was dead. “We’ll get her back,” Jeremy continued, “We even put ice in the water to reduce the risk of brain damage.”

He released Waverly’s shoulders, and she took a couple of steps before she dropped to her knees next to the tub. Nicole’s lifeless hand rested on the side. Waverly couldn’t help but take and press a kiss to the back of it. She fought against every instinct in her body, not to drag her girlfriend out of that tub.

Nedley stood up. He dropped a bundle of some sort of flowers tied together into the tub and began to chant in a language even Waverly did not recognize. It seemed like forever before he said, “That should be it.”

“How do we know if it worked?” Jeremy asked.

“Who cares? Get her out of the tub!” Waverly snapped.

“Right,” Jeremy said as he grabbed Nicole under the knees as Nedley lifted her shoulders out of the water. They placed her as gently as they could on the floor.

Nedley dropped to his knees and immediately started CPR. Waverly watched Jeremy kneel by Nicole’s head and tip her chin up to prepare to give rescue breaths. Something snapped in Waverly, and she pushed him away.

“Don’t you dare,” she barked as she took his place.

“She’d probably you rather do it anyway,” Jeremy said as he scooted back.

“Twenty-eight…Twenty-nine…Thirty…” Nedley called out with each compression. He then paused and nodded at Waverly.

Waverly tipped Nicole’s head back and pinched her nose. Her lips were purple, and they were ice cold. They felt nothing like Nicole’s lips usually felt like as Waverly sealed her’s over them. They felt like the lips of a corpse. She gave two breaths, and Nedley resumed compressions.

“Don’t do this,” Waverly said tears softly sliding down her cheeks, “Come back to me…Come back to me, Nicole,” she continued to repeat that with every compression, like a prayer.

It seemed like hours of doing CPR. Nedley and Jeremy had switched twice already, and Waverly no longer knew how many times she had tipped Nicole’s head back and breathed into her mouth. Suddenly Nicole’s body twitched, and she let out a mighty gasp and cough.

“Roll her on her side,” Nedley commanded, and they did.

Nicole sputtered and coughed and vomited salt water all over the floor. She lay on her side, just gasping for breath for what seemed like a very long time.

“Great, I’m throwing up again,” she said finally in a feeble voice.

“You okay?” Jeremy asked.

“Never better,” Nicole said sarcastically as she slowly pushed herself to a sitting position. She finally realized that Waverly was there. “Baby, how….”

“I broke the fucking footboard, Nicole,” Waverly snapped as she held up her hand with the pink fuzzy handcuffs still attached. Her immediate relief at hearing Nicole take a breath was now replaced with anger. She had possibly never been so angry at anyone in her entire life. “I was about ten seconds from chewing my own hand off at the wrist to get out.”

“That’s not funny,” Nicole said wearily.

“No, it really isn’t,” Waverly said coldly.

“I think we should perhaps give them a moment,” Nedley said as he guided Jeremy away from the couple sitting on the floor. “Celebratory pop?”

“You have grape?” Jeremy asked.

“Of course,” Nedley replied, and they disappeared into the back of Shorty’s.

“Baby, I had to…” Nicole began.

“Don’t you ‘Baby’ me right now, Nicole,” Waverly said, cutting her off, “I am so mad at you.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Nicole continued.

“Didn’t have a choice?” Waverly asked incredulously. “How about seeing if Wynonna could find Peacemaker? How about waiting for me to do more research? How about one of about a dozen options that didn’t involve you drowning?”

“I could have killed you in that fire. I couldn’t risk that happening again. I couldn’t risk hurting anyone,” Nicole said with a shake of her head.

“So, you were okay with telling me you love me and then going off to drown?” Waverly snapped. “What if you died, Nicole?” 

“I did die.”

“What if we couldn’t get you back? What if you left me?” Waverly said as she let out a sob.

“You left me,” Nicole said very softly.

“What?” Waverly said with a frown.

“You left me drugged on the kitchen floor while you fucked off to the Garden.”

“I didn’t choose that. Wynonna drugged you, and I didn’t choose to go into the Garden,” Waverly said.

“But that’s still what happened, isn’t it?” Nicole asked as she looked Waverly in the eye, then quickly looked away. Waverly had a feeling this had been brewing under the surface for quite some time.

“Go ahead, and say what you want to say, Nicole,” Waverly said gently.

“It’s not fair…I know it’s not fair. You didn’t choose to go, but…” Nicole let her voice trail off.

Waverly scooted closer to Nicole and gently brushed her damp hair off her face. “But I still left you.”

“Yeah,” Nicole said very softly again.

“And you were alone for eighteen months, and for me, it was a couple of days,” Waverly continued.

“At first, I thought you’d be back any day. And then days turned to weeks and weeks to months, and I was more and more desperate,” Nicole looked up at Waverly, “I would have done anything…given anything to get you back.”

“It’s okay,” Waverly said gently as she reached out to touch Nicole’s face again, but Nicole recoiled.

“Then you were home, and I spent a year and a half in torture, and for you, no time had passed at all…”

“And you’re angry at me,” Waverly finished calmly.

“No…I know it’s not fair….I know I shouldn’t be,” Nicole mumbled as she covered her face with her hands and began to cry. “It’s not your fault…”

Waverly wiped tears of her own from her face. It broke her heart to see Nicole like this. “It doesn’t have to be fair,” Waverly said, “You can be mad at me, Nicole. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Nicole said with a shake of her head. Her face was still buried in her hands.

“Your emotions don’t have to be fair to me, you feel what you feel,” Waverly said softly as she reached out and stroked Nicole’s arm. “And for what it’s worth, if I could go back and change things I would, but we can’t. We just have to move on from here.”

Nicole lowered her hands and looked at Waverly. “You don’t hate me? After everything?”

“I could never hate you,” Waverly said emphatically. “But I am still furious with you. You can’t kill yourself, Nicole, because I can’t live without you.”

“Waverly, I would do anything for you. I would die for you; I had to risk it to protect you,” Nicole explained.

Waverly slid closer to Nicole and cupped her face in both of her hands. “Don’t you get it, Nicole, I don’t want you to die for me, I want you to live for me…with me…for the rest of our lives…together.”

Nicole smiled that sweet, gentle smile that Waverly loved. “I want that too.”

Waverly nodded. “Nicole, I need you to understand something. In the Garden, I was ready to sit on my father’s throne. I was all set to turn to stone and be a permanent fixture.”

“But Wynonna got through to you,” Nicole said.

Waverly shook her head. “No, she didn’t. You did.”

“I wasn’t there, Baby,” Nicole said in a confused tone.

“Wynonna showed me the ring I had proposed with, told me that you would say yes. That’s what gave me the strength to stand up and walk away—the idea of living my life with you. Nicole, you can’t die on me. I came back for you.”

“Baby, I love you,” Nicole said. “No matter what, that will always be true.”

“And I love you,” Waverly replied. She started to lean in to kiss Nicole before the other woman stopped her.

“I’d love to kiss you, but the number of times I’ve vomited today…” Nicole said.

Waverly laughed and pressed a kiss to Nicole’s forehead and then wrapped her arms around her. Nicole let out a little groan of pain as Waverly squeezed her.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think Nedley may have cracked a rib or two doing CPR,” Nicole said. “But on the bright side, I no longer feel the urge to hurl every time I so much as think about telling you what I did, so I think the spell worked.”

“We should probably talk about that, huh?” Waverly said.

“Yeah, you’re not going to be happy,” Nicole said.

“Hey, no matter what it is, we’ll get through it together, okay?” 

“Okay.”


End file.
